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Although this could very well be a picture of me finding a new treasure at a favorite nursery, it's actually an illustration by David Catrow for a children's book called Plantzilla.

Thursday, October 30, 2014

Big Excitement Sometimes Comes in Small Packages.

What could be inside this hastily made Dixie cup carrier?

As you may recall from this post I was finally successful at introducing frogs to my garden. Unfortunately, the frogs I introduced were bullfrogs from the eastern part of the U.S. which are not native here and haven't made a sound in my garden. Since they've been successful for a couple of summers, one choosing to stay in the koi pond and a couple preferring a large water-water filled pot that hosts a Thalia dealbata, perhaps our native tree frogs will be successful here as well. I've worked at keeping my beds full of fallen and rotting things (this is how I justify my laziness) and leaving lots of areas kind of wild with water catchers large and small around the garden to try and create an hospitable habitat. Recently at my school, my pal Christina (you may recall her bug and dahlia adventures here.) has found three native tree frogs each about a week apart. I learned too late that transporting these to new areas is not recommended as they have strong homing instincts and may be killed trying to return home. However, it's been about 4 weeks since the first couple of tree frogs, that narrowly escaped the running feet of children and the blades of the school lawn mower, were introduced and I hear their lovely song at various times of the day so maybe they are happy here.

Today, this little fellow jumped right in front of my friend Kim who announced it's presence to Chistina who promptly scooped it up and created the fancy Dixie cup modular home. Here (s)he is being released. These are in an area as far from the bullfrogs as possible.

Isn't it cute?

I've been thrilled to hear the sweet frog croaking in my garden! Christina's son, Cole, found the following two just this evening in their garden which is overrun with the critters! The markings on this one are quite different from the others. Is it a different kind of frog or do markings of tree frogs vary?

Christina sent these pictures of these two new pals for the three in my garden. I hope that they'll be happy here and create lots of offspring! We certainly have a lot of bugs for them to eat!

Thanks, Cristina and Cole for the sweet frog song in my garden that your little friends sing!

29 comments:

I'm glad somebody else gets as excited about frogs as I do! Tree frogs are so great!

I was never able to do a good survey of the types of frogs that I had in the pond this year -- they were too nervous and almost always jumped into the water when I approached -- but I'm pretty sure I had three different types at least. We'll see how many are around next year.

Great excitement in the garden: tree frogs, toads, anoles, fence lizards and a host of other valuable creatures. Sometimes I see the tiniest lizards skittering about and stopping to CHEW. What fun for a pesticide-free environment.

Such adorable little cuties! I hope you manage to get them established. I bet they will love your garden. I've seen a couple occasionally in my own garden, but they may just be passing through, because I never hear them. Last year not long after the greenhouse was finished, I found one in there. But it's gone now.

I have a few ornamental frogs... I think your new residents are adorable, but to hold one in my hand will be like a challenge on a reality show: I'll pass out first, I'm too squeamish. Still I wish you great success with these lovelies.

Thanks for the link, Jean! The electrician talked me into having him install permanent heaters on a thermostat at the two ends of the greenhouse. These are rated as sufficient to heat the whole space. I'm planning on leaving the thermostat set at 40 degrees so the heaters will probably not go on for at least another month. It wasn't very expensive and it's a relief to not have to monitor the temperature out three as closely as I did with the little glass room off the back porch where I used to keep a lot of the tender plants for the winter. There was no air circulation out there and things sometimes looked pretty sad by the end of winter.

I love frogs! I hope yours remain happy and healthy in their new home. When I was a kid, our backyard was full of them but, over time, they seemed to disappear, perhaps as a side-effect of the increased urbanization of the valley I grew up in. I've never seen frogs in any of the gardens I've had as an adult, which is a sorry state of affairs. I do have lots and lots and lots of lizards, however.

Lizards are fun too! I am hoping that the frogs will be o.k. here as my garden is in a fairly urban area. There are several large back yards on our block where pesticides aren't used so perhaps they will have enough space.

Peter, the "introduced" bullfrogs in Sunriver, Oregon have become a major problem because they eat the smaller native frogs. Bullfrogs are rapidly increasing in number and the native population is rapidly decreasing. The wildlife people are now working on removing all the bullfrogs, but they lay so many eggs that there is concern the bullfrogs will eventually winn the battle.

Interesting! I've heard that bullfrogs can be a problem but they've stayed close to the pond where their eggs, if there's a female, will be koi food. Hopefully the little native frogs will stay in the lower yard where there's fish-free water for their eggs!

About Me

Why Outlaw Gardener? I like to break the rules of good taste, plant placement, and plant hardiness. Also, I have received periodic "love notes" from the city code enforcement officer telling me that my parking strip plants encroach on the city's right-of-way. When expressing my distress over the latest such notice, I exclaimed to my pal Loree (Danger Garden) "I'm an outlaw gardener!" To which she replied,"That would be a good name for a blog."
My first gardens were in Southeast Alaska (zone 3.)I do miss the beauty and community of small-town Alaska but I don't take for granted for a moment how wonderful it is to garden in zone 8.